With an objective to strengthen its reach in Eastern and North-Eastern region in India, the Federation of Freight Forwarders’ Associations in India (FFFAI) held its 15th Executive Committee (EC) Meeting on August 4 and 5, 2023 in Kolkata, which was hosted by Calcutta Customs House Agents Association (CCHAA). The EC Meeting was attended by the Office Bearers and a large number of EC members of FFFAI consisting of 30 Member Associations from across the country.
Significantly, for the first time some leading Customs Brokers from Guwahati and Shillong of Northeast region were also invited to attend the FFFAI EC meeting to exchange ideas on the potential of this region from the interest of EXIM trade, Customs Brokers, Freight Forwarding and logistics industry. According to Mr. Shankar Shinde, Chairman, FFFAI, considering the huge importance of the untapped Northeast Region, the Federation would expand its network and strengthen activities in this region to facilitate the EXIM trade, in line with the endeavour of the present Government by creating conducive policies and setting up of required infrastructure for multimodal logistics operations.
In this meeting FFFAI members also put special emphasis on the strategic location of Northeastern Region from multimodal logistics industry’s point of view as well as connecting with neighboring Southeast Asian countries and Bangladesh, Bhutan & Nepal utilizing cost-effective land/multimodal transportation routes. In this regard, opportunities and challenges of utilization of Inland Waterways and Surface Transports have also been discussed. A special session was organized during the EC meeting inviting Mr. Aditya Mishra, IPS, Chairman, Land Port Authority of India and Mr. Arvind Kumar, Director, Inland Waterways Authority of India as guest speakers to elaborate on recent developments on land ports and Inland Waterways respectively.
Other major topics discussed in the 15th EC Meeting of FFFAI were related to Customs, GST, Ports & Sea Freight, Airport & Airfreight, ICDs, etc. Dissemination of information through various media/channels was also discussed with adequate emphasis. With this objective, the April-June issue of FFFAI Bulletin was released by the office Bearers of FFFAI on this occasion.